Corrugated paperboard is typically used in many different applications, for example, to form trays, containers, boxes, cartons, or dividers for holding, storing, stacking or shipping various items.
Frequently, corrugated trays are utilized for holding commercial products, such as beverage bottles and cans, to be shipped to stores, kiosks or non-commercial locations for the sale, display or use of the products. Typically, the bottles and cans are shipped in standard shaped trays that tend to have a high length/width to height ratio, that is, the lengths and widths of the bottom panels are significantly larger than the heights of the attached upright side and end walls, resulting in a tray that is ideally suited for carrying one or a multiplicity of items having a short height.
These trays are generally erected from blanks scored with score or cut lines. The blanks are most often scored by automated machines in a continuous in-line process involving cutting, scoring and molding continuous sheets of paperboard. The paperboard is then erected by the automated machine along the score or cut lines to form the tray. Alternatively, the blanks may be erected into a tray by a user or other manual means. The trays may be covered with a removable lid, but are typically used without one.
The side and end walls must be held secure on an upright position when the tray is erected. To achieve this, a standard tray has side flaps foldably attached to opposing edges of the side walls. The side flaps fold inward and adhere to an interior portion of the end walls, thereby connecting and stabilizing the side and end walls into position. Generally, in order to save materials and costs, the side flaps only cover a small portion of the interior of the end wall, for example, a portion that is significantly less than one half the length of the end wall. Thus, when the two opposing side flaps of each opposing side wall are attached to an end wall, a gap is left by the end walls between the two side flaps.
The addition of side flaps that overlap interior portions of the end walls result in a tray wherein the length between the opposing end walls changes depending on the location within the interior space of the tray. Specifically, the tray has a narrower interior space between the end walls where the side flaps overlap the end walls than the space at the center of the tray where no side flaps are present. This results in an uneven space within the tray that causes items such as bottles and cans to shift in transit, namely the row or rows of items located between the end walls in the center of the tray.
The uneven space can potentially be eliminated by attaching the side flaps to an exterior portion of the end wall, thereby having a flat interior within the container. However, this creates an uneven exterior, which can create an unattractive display and has ridges on the outside of the tray that may get caught on other objects, hindering shipment of the goods. Alternatively, the side flaps could be lengthened so that each flap covers about one half of the end wall. Thus, when two opposing side flaps are placed together on the same end wall, the interior gap is eliminated. However, this requires additional raw material and increases production costs.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a tray that optimizes the space within the tray while maintaining cost and shipping efficiency.